322 ON ERRATA RECEPTA. 



{avis struthio) into ostrich, &c. &c. From patron (patronus) we have 

 ioxnxQdi pattern. Out oi s'essorer (exaurare) we have developed soar. 

 The bassinetts which we see adyertised. are Barcelonettes. Jais -we 

 have converted into je^, intending, it is probable, at first, that the t 

 should be silent. In this case we have certainly obtained a very sim- 

 ple vocable out of a rather unpromising-looking original, -viz., gagates, 

 gag^tes. 



Tante we have transformed to aunt, thereby accidentally approach- 

 ing the original amte, i.e., amita, am'ta. "We have rejected the initial 

 t, which — as in a-t-il — was an intercalation to prevent hiatus, the full 

 form having once been ma-t-ante. Oifrhre we have made yrmr, from 

 which has evaporated the notion of brother,'^ Pape, which has a frag- 

 ment of sense in it, we write ^ope, which has not. Messe we call mass, 

 departing still farther than our authorities from missa. {Ite catechu- 

 meni ! c9ncio missa est.) Mets we write mess, a departure again from 

 missa — but now missa is neut. plur., denoting the things sent to the 

 table. To prowess we attach the idea, I think, merely of might com- 

 bined with courage ; in prouesse is implied the prudence, or theprov-ed. 

 experience of the preux chevalier. — Dropping out of tailor one of the 

 Ts of tailleur, we somewhat obscure the notion of cutting which would 

 otherwise be suggested from our familiarity with the cognizance of the 

 well-known publisher, Talboys — a hatchet struck into a tree-trunk, 

 accompanied by the legend Taille-bois. — The first syllable of comrade 

 has been forced by us to be a symbol of fellowship, by a violence to 

 camarade, which indeed denotes companionship, but specifically that 

 pf a chum or cA«m5e?'-fellow.f 



"We say balance for the complement or difference between two 

 amounts. It should be bilan, a curious technicality in French book- 

 keeping derived from bilanx — Latin for a pair of lances, i.e., dishes 

 or scales. — It is likely that the Englishman who first transferred the 

 French limon to our language intended that we would pronounce it 

 le-mon, as he wrote it. At the same time it may be remarked as 

 strange that the Frenchman who first heard the name of the Arab 

 fruit, laimun, should have jotted it down limon. 



Sangraal figures in our story of King Arthur. Holy grail has 



* Elbow. • * * Bless you, goor] father friar. 

 Duke. And you, good brother father. 



—M. for M., iii. 2 



• f In Fanshaw's Translation (1655) of The Lusiad, we have cam'rade. (Vide-, 

 vii. 25.) 



